John Simon shares music history at Shadowland

Friday

Apr 13, 2012 at 2:00 AM

Bob Dylan was knock, knock, knockin' on John Simon's Woodstock door. This was the early 1970s and Dylan was about to make his ill-fated film "Renaldo and Clara." The great singer-songwriter wanted to hire Simon — a Princeton University-educated pianist, composer and producer of acts like the Band, Simon and Garfunkel and Janis Joplin — to be his "musical secretary" for the movie. For all of Dylan's talent, he couldn't write music.

Steve Israel

Bob Dylan was knock, knock, knockin' on John Simon's Woodstock door. This was the early 1970s and Dylan was about to make his ill-fated film "Renaldo and Clara." The great singer-songwriter wanted to hire Simon — a Princeton University-educated pianist, composer and producer of acts like the Band, Simon and Garfunkel and Janis Joplin — to be his "musical secretary" for the movie. For all of Dylan's talent, he couldn't write music.

But Simon — who shared a driveway with the Band's Robbie Robertson — was a busy guy.

So he turned down Dylan.

"I'm sorry, Bob," he recalled saying, "I have other commitments."

That was John Simon back then, in such demand he could say no to Bob Dylan.

Today, most folks around Ellenville know Simon as the bespectacled Thursday-night jazz pianist at the Aroma Thyme Bistro. Even the bartender at Aroma Thyme had no idea that back in the '60s and '70s, Simon produced some of rock's greatest albums — the Band's "Music From Big Pink" and "The Band," Joplin's "Cheap Thrills," and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends" — along with being the musical director for one of the great rock 'n' roll concert films, "The Last Waltz," which featured the Band, Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

Just one problem with the film: The vocals by the Band were all overdubbed, said Simon, except those by Woodstock's Levon Helm.

Simon will share insider insights like that about stars like those Saturday night at Shadowland Theatre in "An Evening With John Simon: Reminiscences of a Life in Rock 'n' Roll."

Take Joplin and her biggest album, "Cheap Thrills," which featured "Piece of My Heart."

It was supposed to be recorded live, said Simon, who lives in Ulster County. But even though you hear applause throughout the album, only one track was actually cut in concert, "Ball and Chain." The rest were recorded in the studio, with whoever was around applauding.

The reason?

As good as the blues singer was, Joplin's band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, "wasn't good enough to do a live album," says Simon.

"They made mistakes in concert," he said. "And on a record, mistakes live forever."

That was just the opposite of the Band, at least on its first two landmark albums that Simon produced. Members of the Band were not only good enough to fuse all of their rootsy influences into one of the most influential sounds in rock, but also they literally brought those influences with them when they recorded their debut, "Music From Big Pink."

Take the album cover's inside shot, which features the guys in the Band looking very unlike rock stars in photos with their moms and dads, aunts and uncles. That was typical of the Band. In fact, Rick Danko's Uncle Lee even brought along some homemade carrot and beet wine, which he offered to Simon in the red barn that was part of the photo shoot.

"And Robbie's mom was always around," he said. "When we went to California (to record 'The Band') she was there, too."

But even though Simon had a hand in some of the most memorable pop music of the '60s - providing strings for Gordon Lightfoot's "Did She Mention My Name," indulging Simon and Garfunkel's every production whim on "Bookends" — "The Last Waltz" was tops when it came to star power. Clapton, Van Morrison, Mitchell, Young, Dylan, Muddy Waters and, of course, the Band were all the responsibility of Simon, the musical director for the Martin Scorsese film of what was supposed to be the Band's last concert.

"If anything went wrong ...," he said.

It almost did.

After the Band played a few tunes, a horn section came out to back them, with Simon placing their charts on the music stands.

As Robertson counted off a song, and Scorsese's cameras rolled, Simon realized the Band and the horns were about to play two different songs.

What happened, according to the ultimate music business insider?

"It's an outtake."

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